


can we skip past near-death cliches (where my heart restarts as my life replays?)

by zanthetran



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Firewatch Fusion, F/F, Firewatch au, I guess? I really dont know if im using that right I looked it up but idk, rated M for cursing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:21:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24275014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanthetran/pseuds/zanthetran
Summary: Yaz needed to get out of Sheffield. She spent so much of her time there being not okay that a change of pace was desperately needed. So she gets a job as a fire watch in the Shoshone national forest in Wyoming. She doesn’t realize what she assumed to be slow pace job of basically camping for a summer is going to turn her entire view of the world - and what she wants - upside down when she meets another ranger, the Doctor.Aka the thasmin firewatch au no one asked me to write but I wrote anyways-“How long did you sleep?” Yaz asked.“Oh, um, 12 minutes, I think. Maybe 13. It seemed longer than normal.”Twelve minutes? She was coworkers with an alien, or a vampire. No, that’s stupid. Aliens wouldn’t come to Earth.
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor/Yasmin Khan
Comments: 17
Kudos: 69





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: hello I am , Back. I never left but now im back so. Anyways this a firewatch au but you don’t need to have played it or know what it is to read this (but I do suggest playing it bc it’s very Pretty and the closest we can get while in quarantine). Anyways let me know what y’all think. chapter 2&3 will be out soon - im thinking probably a few days. also I don't have a beta or anything like that so what you read is all me babey mistakes n all.
> 
> title from: touch by sleeping at last
> 
> Find me at zanthetran on tumblr/twitter where I post about cross stitch and doctor who and not writing.
> 
> thasmin song I recommend to listen to while reading: gravity by timeflies

The forest was beautiful, above all else.

The fresh pine of the trees filled her nose as she walked and she felt like she could finally breathe. For the first time in…years, she supposed. The names and bullies and hate she kept with her after she left secondary melted away and slid off her shoulders as she walked. She felt lighter, somehow.

The walk was farther than Yaz expected (a lot farther than the man at the reception building told her, though that is almost definitely because he measures in _miles_ , not kilometers. She was going to need to remember that). She was already sweating through her shirt by the time she got to the watchtower. It was rickety, white paint peeling off the wood posts holding it up and a stair missing near the bottom of the staircase. A half dozen propane cans scattered the ground underneath the tower, next to a water spigot. She unscrewed the cap of her water bottle and filled it with cold water from the spigot, taking a long drink from the bottle and wiping her mouth with her sleeve (note to self: American hot is vastly different from Sheffield hot). She tilted her head back and took in the full height of the watchtower - her new home for the summer.

The job paid shit but it gave her a place to sleep at night and got her out of Sheffield, so it was a win win. To clarify: she doesn’t hate her home town - far from it , actually. She just needed to get out, after she graduated and left the bad memories behind (in a way that _wasn’t_ running away and trying to hitchhike on the side of the road). Her parents wanted her to become a police officer but Yaz couldn’t see herself like that; writing tickets and dealing with parking spot disputes between grown adults who should be able to deal with that themselves. They were right cross when she informed them of where she’d be going for her new job (her mother didn’t speak to her for three whole days) but they raised a stubborn woman and Yaz was set on it.

She started up the rickety staircase, skipping the missing stair as she went. When she got to the top she took a minute to look out at the view. Trees covered as far as she could see, tall and thick with dark green leaves reaching towards the sky. The sun was already set for the day. Crickets (or are those called cicadas? She was going to need to look that up somehow) chirped in the trees below her.

As she neared the door, she heard the crackling of static from in the room. A muffled voice crackled through the walkie talkie sitting on the desk.

“Hello, two forks tower. This is supposed to be the channel for the new park ranger, Yasmin Khan. If you are Yasmin Khan please pick me up.Well, not _me_ , but the radio, which isn’t me. I’m a person. In another watchtower. I can see you, actually, please pick up the radio, Yasmin Khan —“

Yaz picked up the radio and pressed the side button. “Do you always talk this much?”

A joyous laugh came over the line. “Only when I meet new people. It’s a pleasure, Yasmin Khan. I’m the Doctor.”

“Doctor of what?” Yaz asked as she put her pack down on her bed (and wondered if this mysterious woman could still see her). “You can call me Yaz, by the way. My friends call me Yaz.”

“Does this mean we’re friends now?”

Yaz sat on the bed and toed off her boots, stretching her sore feet. “You’re one of the only human contacts I’ll have for the summer. I think that means we have to be friends.”

* * *

“Good morning, Yaz! Or, well, good afternoon, Yaz. It’s almost evening, really —”

Yaz put her pencil down and picked up the radio. “Hi, Doctor.”

“How’d ya sleep? You’ve gotten a whole…12 hours,” the Doctor paused, then asked, “Is that normal for humans?”

_Normal for humans? What the f—_

“Only when those humans hiked for two days through the Wyoming forest.”

“Well, whenever you’re done getting settled, I have a mission for ya.”

The mission, it turned out, was scaring away some teenagers setting off fireworks near the lake. Idiots, Yaz thought. One spark could light all the dry brush in an instant, and then they’d have quite a bit of a mess there. She picked up her pack and left as soon as she shoved her feet into her boots.

The path wasn’t so much of a trail as it was some smushed down grass and twigs that Yaz had to carefully follow on her map to figure out how to get to the lake. The Doctor seemed to be just as hopeless at using the map. She got lost, twice, and at one point convinced she was walking in circles when she came upon the supply cache. She put in the combination on the lock and opened the lid.

“I can’t believe you really made the combination 1234,” she said into her radio.

A pause, and then, “that’s the _best_ password, because it’s so easy! Hard to forget.” She sounded…out of breath? Yaz wondered what this woman actually did while Yaz was yelling at stupid teenagers about fire safety and how the lake probably has leeches in it (she might not mention that last part. She’s still deciding).

“You leave food in these boxes?” She picked up a granola bar and checked the expiration date. Surprisingly, not expired.

“Of course. What else would I eat when I’m running through the forest?”

Yaz inspected a pinecone sitting at the back of the box, then took the rope and put it in her pack. “What would you be running in the forest for? You bein’ chased or something?”

“We’re all being chased by something, Yaz.”

“That’s the opposite of reassuring, Doctor.” Yas said as she shut the cache and started towards the lake again.

She found the smoldering fire first, and stomped it out, then followed the trail of…clothes. Clothes torn off and thrown haphazardly around. She avoided the clothing items and made her way to the lake, following the loud thump of music and streaks in the sky that meant these dumbass kids were _still_ setting off fireworks.

The first thing she did was shut off the stereo.

“Oi! You two! Stop settin’ off fireworks or I’m going to call the cops!” She yelled at the two figures in the water.

The one on the left yelled a good vocabulary of swear words, and the one on the right flipped her the finger.

Yaz picked up the stereo and walked back the way she came.

* * *

She followed the trail around the other side of the lake and through a small stream between walls of rock. The sun cast an orange glow over everything. Long shadows stretched across the floor, keeping her cool and sweat to a minimum (a blessing in this humidity, really). Yaz looked up at the sky every so often to watch the dark rain clouds speed towards her. Thunder rumbled low in the distance.

“I think there’s gonna be a storm,” she said into the radio.

“Looks like it. Might wanna hurry on back to your tower before you get struck by lightning or something,”

The ground crunched underneath her boots as she walked. “Very comforting, thank you, Doctor.”

She came to the mouth of a cave and got out her torch, shining it around.

“Is there supposed to be a cave here?”

“Oh, yes! That’s called, uh, oh hold on,” Yaz started into the cave and touched one of the cold walls. She wanted to press her face to it, it was so cold. “Thunder Canyon!”

“Wonderful.” Yaz deadpanned. She followed the path as it narrowed and turned to the left. “What’s in here anyways?”

“Not sure. Best be careful, tho.”

“Yes, sir.” Yaz mock saluted, then immediately felt stupid. She wanted to slap herself, and she probably would’ve if she wasn’t suddenly blasted back to the rock wall, hitting the ground hard.

She groaned, rolling to her side and picking herself up off the floor. She had to search for her torch and radio from where she dropped them.

“Doctor? Something happened,” she said into the radio.

“Yaz? What happened?” The Doctor asked, sounding concerned.

“I hit…something. It knocked me back,” she picked up a rock and threw it the way she had been walking. The rock stopped mid air, right where Yaz had been, and then the wall blasted it away to the other end of the cave. A forcefield or something? “It’s like, an invisible wall.”

“Oo! That’s different, wonder what they’re hiding.”

“Doctor, why is this here? What is it?”

There was a weird ringing noise over the radio that lasted a few seconds then stopped. “Not sure. I’ll come out that way tomorrow and take a look. Best you get out of there.”

Yaz did exactly that, finding an opening towards the far wall that took her out the other side of the cave. The sun had fully set and she was forced to walk in the worsening dark. She followed the path (that was definitely harder to walk up than it was when she came down earlier) and eventually came upon the watch tower.

* * *

“So what brought you to the Wyoming forest, Yasmin Khan?” The Doctor asked when Yaz settled herself on the edge of the watchtower, facing the identical tower in the distance.

“Needed a change of scenery, I think. Got some bad memories back home.” She wasn’t going to tell a total stranger her entire life story, no matter how easy (read: comfortble) it seemed. She tipped the bottle up again and took another long swig. The alcohol burned her throat and settled warm in her stomach.

“So, have you got family?” Yaz asked.

The radio was silent so long Yaz thought they might’ve lost connection, then she heard the Doctors quiet (and slightly slurred) voice. “No, lost them a long time ago.”

Yaz wanted to apologize, but remembered how angry she had gotten when people kept apologizing when her nan died, and decided against it. Instead, she asked, “how do you deal with it?"

She could almost visualize the woman on the other end of the radio. Probably taking a long drink of whatever she had, wearing cargo shorts and a ranger shirt. Maybe blonde? Nah, that wasn’t right. Maybe brunette?

“I carry them with me. What they would’ve thought and said and done. Make them a part of who I am. So even though they’re gone from the world, they’re never gone from me.”

Yaz kicked her bare feet in the air and took another long swig from the bottle sitting next to her. “That’s beautiful, Doctor.”

The tips of the trees swayed slowly in the hot summer breeze. Yaz picked up her binoculars and focused on the watchtower in front of her. The setting was as close and clear as they could go and she could still barely see the outline of the other woman sitting in the same position, legs swinging from the platform.

“Do you have family?” The Doctor asked.

Yaz put the binoculars down and picked up the radio. “Yeah, they’re back home in Sheffield. My sister and parents.”

“Oh! Sheffield, great place, loved the market,”

“You’ve been?”

“Not for a few decades, it seems like.”

The connections between thoughts was piss poor (and maybe she shouldn’t be sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of a tower she could easily fall off of in her drunk state), but Yaz was competent enough to think _how old is this woman?_ and then the thought disappeared with the alcohol flowing through her body.

Yaz felt...good. Happy, even, and that couldn’t all be the alcohol. She was content at the moment, not itching out of her skin to do something, be something, get somewhere. Content to just sit in her watchtower in the middle of a forest in Wyoming and talk to a woman she’s never met or seen over a radio that looked like it was an original from 1978.

“What are you wearing?”

Yaz almost laughed out loud. “ _What?_ ”

“Your clothes. What are you wearing? I want to know what you look like,” Yaz heard a shuffling from the other line. She laid back on the platform and put one arm underneath her head, the other holding the walkie talkie.

The sky stretched on for kilometers (forever, it seemed) above her. The stars were clear and bright and Yaz thought about how most of them were already dead, their light traveling billions of kilometers to be seen by a woman on a watchtower in the middle of Wyoming. It was beautiful, and breathtaking, and terrifying, really (and maybe felt a bit like falling).

“Shorts,” she said. “The kind you can get at Target. And a t-shirt from the football league I was in as a kid.” The memory of little Yaz popped into her mind (she only played a few years, and sometimes wish she’d stuck with it).

“Which one?”

“We were called the falcons. I was a pretty good player, for a kid.”

The Doctor laughed and Yaz smiled. “I bet. Rough and tough?”

“Of course,” Yaz said, then, “what are you wearing?”

“ _Yaz_ , you’ll need to buy me dinner first,” came the scandalized reply. Even though they were kilometers ( _miles,_ damn it) apart and couldn’t feasibly see each other even with binoculars, Yaz’s cheeks flushed pink.

“Teal blue trousers and yellow suspenders. A purple shirt with a rainbow on it. Sometimes a grey coat if it rains.”

Yaz let out a snort. This woman couldn’t be serious. “You sound like an absolute wreck, to be frank.”

“Oi! I’ll have you know I pull it off well, thank you very much.”

Yaz smiled, closing her eyes as she relaxed against the rough wood. “I bet.”


	2. chapter two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what is UP y'all here is chapter 2. also I feel I should mention I am but a lowly american so the most I know of how British people sound is doctor who and skins
> 
> thasmin song I recommend listening to: ooh by jon bellion (I just played it on repeat for like three days babey)

“Good morning, two forks tower! This is your captain speaking, we will begin our descent in a few minutes. Please buckle your seat belts and put your tray tables up. The —“

Yaz shoved her hand out from her blanket cocoon and slapped around on the nightstand until she found the offending piece of plastic (she did not throw it out the window, even if she really wanted to). “Are you going to wake me up every morning?” Yaz grumbled into the radio.

“I didn’t wake you up yesterday,” the Doctor pointed out, far too awake for the hour.

“Doctor, it’s —” she poked her head out of the blankets and squinted at the alarm clock (in a room that was still _dark,_ she wanted that pointed out). “four thirty.”

“Yes! Exactly! Far too late! I can’t believe you’ve slept this long.”

Yaz shoved her face into the pillow beneath her and thought about going back to sleep and turning the radio off, ignoring the Doctor entirely. “How long did you sleep?” she asked.

“Oh, um, 12 minutes, I think. Maybe 13. It seemed longer than normal.”

_Twelve minutes? She was coworkers with an alien, or a vampire. No, that’s stupid. Aliens wouldn’t come to Earth._ Yaz rubbed a hand across her face and sat up, pushing the covers off and swinging her bare feet to the wooden floor. It was a cool morning and the windows she left open the night before provided a breeze through the room that made goosebumps break out on her exposed skin.

“You’re insane, truly.”

The Doctor scoffed, then said, “probably.”

Yaz rolled her eyes and turned on the light, getting ready for the day apparently. She was halfway through a nutritious breakfast of a granola bar, half a can of coke, and three bites of an apple when the Doctor called on the radio again.

“Yaz,”

“Doctor,” Yaz replied.

“Ready for the agenda today, Park Ranger Khan?” she asked in an official voice.

Yaz put the rest of the apple in the trash. “Alright, go ahead.”

The agenda: a downed power line a few miles (not kilometers) east of her tower, and she was the closest one (within a two days hike, other than the Doctor, of course). It sort of made Yaz really _think_ for the first time about how isolated she really is. She could get mauled by a bear, or fall off a cliff, or get kidnapped by a group from MI6 because she’s a secret undercover spy and they had erased her memories —

Okay, the last one is a little far fetched. It doesn’t change the fact that she could get in trouble out here and her last contact would be with a random woman she talked to on a radio. Comforting.

(She told herself she’d hike up to the Rangers Station and call her parents as soon as she could.)

Yaz put in the combination (1234 still) for the lock on the cache box. She opened the lid to find a handful of (not yet expired) granola bars and a horn - or maybe like, a bone? “Doctor? What’s this bone here for?”

“Bone?”

She picked it up and studied it. “Yeah, there’s a bone or something in this box.”

“Not sure. Maybe one of the other rangers put it there. You know, I knew a ranger that got struck by lightning seven times. I was there for three of ‘em,” the Doctor said. “One was my fault, really. I shouldn’t have brought that umbrella, but it was raining and I was wearing a _suit.”_

Yaz copied the shortcuts on the map stapled to the inside of the lid and studied the rest of the papers hanging there; a note written from one ranger to another about a bear sighting, a flyer for Smokey Bear, and a missing persons flyer with 4 different pictures on the front. The large font letters asked Yaz, ‘ _Have you seen me?’._

“Why’s there a missing persons flyer? Have people gone missin’?” she asked, studying the faces of the people on the flyer.

“Oh, uh, yeah. It’s sort of the reason I’m here. There’s been a few disappearances in the woods recently,” the Doctor said and paused. “Sorry, never a good time to mention that.”

“How long have they been disappearing?” Yaz asked.

“Over the last 6 months or so.”

“How many?”

“Nine.”

“Oh,” is all Yaz could manage.

_Nine missing people. The flyer wasn’t even the half of it._

The terrain slowly changed from lush green foliage and grass tickling her calves to dirt and rocks as she made her way, stopping to check the map and her compass every so often.

“So, Yaz. what do ya like doing?”

“Excuse me?”

“Yanno, like, _stuff_. What stuff is cool, nowadays?”

Yaz laughed. “I don’t know, Doctor. How _old_ are you?” It was a joke but there was pause on the other end.

“Oh, who can keep track? Enough, I suppose,” the Doctor said a little awkwardly.

“Drawing. I like to draw.” Yaz climbed onto a rock and kept on the path. “I have a little notebook full of drawings. Some aren’t very good, but I like them.”

“What do you draw?”

“Everything. Trees, cars, my family. I drew a butterfly that I saw yesterday.”

“Ooh!” The Doctor sounded excited. “What color?”

And so Yaz found herself describing a butterfly in extreme detail as the Doctor kept interrupting to ask questions like _how many legs?_ (What?) and _did you catch a look at the eyes, Yaz?_ (Again - what?)

“I found the power lines, Doctor. Doesn’t look like anything’s wrong,” she said into the radio as she stared up at the power line. The thick wires stretched between tall wood posts and continued on for miles (she remembered!) to either side.

“Well, that’s good. The map says you can go to the top of Beartooth point, check the line, and loop around back home.”

_Home_. The word stuck in Yaz’s mind and buried itself warm behind her ribs.

Yaz did as instructed, hiking the steep incline through the weeds to the top of the point. As she got closer she saw a line hanging from the wood post. She walked closer and inspected the edge of the wires. “Uh, Doctor? I found the power line, it looks like it’s been cut on purpose.”

“What do you mean on purpose?” The Doctor was breathless, like she had been running.

“I mean it looks like someone took a pair of scissors to it.” She scanned the surrounding area and her eyes caught on a piece of paper weighed down by a rock, the paper shaking in the breeze. “I think I found something.”

“Brilliant,” the Doctor said. Yaz heard boots thumping on the ground and the Doctor’s heavy breathing. “Whatcha got?”

Yaz moved the rock and picked up the paper. “I think it was those teenagers,” she said, reading the hastily scrawled ‘ _fuck you Ranger Khan’_ on the paper. “They left a note.”

* * *

Yaz wasn’t mad.

Okay well, she was sort of annoyed, and yeah, a little pissed off. What would have happened if Yaz or any of the other rangers had hurt themself? No power lines means no phone lines which means no rescue if she had fallen off a cliff or something.

So yeah, she was going to find them, and she was going to take their fireworks and give them a talking to her mother would be proud of.

The Doctor didn’t respond when Yaz said she was going to find them, so she assumed it was fine. It wasn’t even hard, either. The stupid kids left a trail of beer cans and cigarette butts that led her right to their camp.

She watched behind the trunk of a thick tree for a moment, waiting for any movement in the camp, and when she didn’t see any she quietly walked over to the tent.

The first thing that got her attention was the clothes (again). Instead of just being haphazardly torn off of teenage bodies running for a lake, they were shredded to bits and thrown about the campsite. Yaz inspected a torn a shirt with the toe of her boot.

The second thing that got her attention was the state of the tent. Two entire sides were shredded, cloth hanging off in loose pieces. Two unrolled sleeping bags lay side by side with a lantern at the feet end. Yaz crouched down to get a better look. Both bags looked untouched.

“I found their tent, it’s been shredded and the girls aren’t here. Should I be worried about bears or something?” she asked into the radio. Static played softly through the speaker for a minute as Yaz waited for a reply.

“Worried? Oh, nah. Probably not. You can climb a tree, right?” The Doctor wasn’t breathless anymore and the running footsteps in the background had stopped.

“What? No. Should I be able to?”

“Oh, uh, no, you’ll probably be fine. Don’t go up to any bears, though.” Yaz wanted to ask more questions (a _lot_ more questions) but the Doctor continued on. “Send me a pic of the camp, wouldya?”

“Doctor, cell phones don’t work out in these parts,” Yaz reminded her. She hadn’t had a single bar of service since halfway through day one.

“Just try, it’ll go through. The number’s in your phone.”

Yaz didn’t believe her and wasn’t even going to entertain the idea of checking, but then her hand had already pulled the phone from her pack and sure enough, under Doctor, The. And the photo sent. Yaz put her phone away and started back home.

* * *

“Why are you awake?” The noise startled Yaz, causing her to drop the cup she was holding (thankfully empty). She clutched her chest dramatically and picked up the cup, then the radio.

“I could ask you the same thing, Doctor.” She filled the cup with water from the tap in her room and drank. It was cold and tasted coppery on her tongue and she loved it.

“Oh, I’ve always got things to do."

“Couldn’t sleep,” Yaz answered the first question.

“Nightmares?” the Doctor asked offhand, obviously trying to put Yaz at ease.

Yaz paused, was she really going to tell a stranger about her nightmares?

“Yeah.” Apparently, she was. “It’s stupid stuff, really. They shake me up sometimes, though.”

Yaz sat at the desk and picked up her pencil, opening the small sketchbook to a new page.

“I have nightmares sometimes too. Bad ones. They keep me awake for days,” the Doctor said quietly. She let out a huff and a forced chuckle. “Maybe that’s why I don’t sleep a lot.”

Yaz outlined first in grey graphite, then started picking colors from the empty soup can she used as a pencil holder. The familiar movements put her at ease, and talking with the Doctor just felt like second nature by now. “I think your brain just moves too fast for you to sleep.”

The Doctor laughed, not a forced chuckle but an actual, proper laugh. Yaz felt her lips curling up to a smile and harshly bit the inside of her cheek to stop herself.

“Yasmin Khan, you might be on to something.” There was shuffling on the other end before it was cut off by the Doctor again. “Do you want me to tell you a bedtime story? That’s what humans do, right?”

“Doctor, you’re making me think you’re not human when you refer to us as _humans,”_ Yaz said as she shaded in the teal. “But sure, tell me a bedtime story.”

“Alright, this is one that Gran #4 told me, so it’s probably not entirely true, but I think most parts are —“

“Wait, Gran #4? How many grans did you have?”

“Nine. Are you going to let me tell the story?”

“Yes, sorry, go ahead.” And Yaz didn’t realize until after the Doctor was done with story (about how the universe came to be and slowly turned into a love story about two planets? Yaz stopped paying attention at some point) that she had drawn, well, the Doctor. Or how she imagined the Doctor. The figure was headless and sitting on the edge of a watchtower identical to Yaz’s. Her legs dangled over the edge, the laces of one boot caught in the wind. The legs of her trousers were pushed up to her knees and her hands held the edge of the platform. Behind the figure was the night sky that Yaz had colored dark blue, dotted with the stars and the two planets, side by side. It wasn’t the best she’s ever done but it was passable, and bonus, the story actually made her tired enough to go back to sleep (whether it was because of the long winded explanations about how hydrogen atoms fuse together or the soft cadence of the Doctor’s voice as she talked, Yaz couldn’t — _wouldn’t_ — say.)

* * *

“So, what’s next?” Yaz asked the next afternoon. She’d spent the morning cleaning up the drawing from the night before and reading one of the books she brought up here. Truthfully, she was a little antsy waiting for the next mission from theDoctor.

“Nothing, for now. Your job is to, uh, oh I wrote it down hold on,” Yaz waited. She waited more. She was about to call the Doctor back when she said, “watch for fires! I knew there was something I was forgetting.”

“Alright, so just call you at the first sign of smoke?”

“Uh, yeah, but also if you wanna talk, too. I’m pretty good at multitasking.”

Yaz picked up her pencil and started another sketch (at this rate she’d need more teal and purple pencils soon). “I bet.”


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last one y'all. I hope it lives up to the hype alright. will they MEET? will they KISS? will the doctor stop being so cryptic and will yaz notice Anything and stop being just Gay?? (no)
> 
> song this was written to: born to be yours by kygo & imagine dragons (Ultimate Yaz Song Forreal)

Two weeks pass with Yaz learning how to make ramen taste _good_ and making her way through the stack of books she had packed and filling her sketchbook with drawings. She draws the Doctor and the made up stories she tells about planets and races and customs and Yaz thinks she could work for, like, the Star Trek people with how creative she is with her alien stories. She draws the trees and the sunsets and sunrises (she now gets up on her own, but not at 4:30 because thats mental) and her cup of tea in the morning and hands holding hands, hands tangled in hair, hands gripping yellow braces.

She calls her parents and talks to her sister for a long while (Sonya is the best at keeping her up to date with both family and friend drama). She tells them she’s happier, that she can breathe now. They sound sad but they tell her how much they love her. She tells them about the trees and the sunrises and sunsets and yelling at teenagers about fire safety. She doesn’t mention the Doctor, and afterwards she can’t really figure out why _._

She presses flowers in the spines of her books and talks to the Doctor and she’s _happy_.

She headed to the lake in the late afternoon, hoping to find that waterfall she saw on a hike the other day. She stepped into a clearing and immediately stopped in her tracks. Sitting in the middle of the clearing was some sort of…doorway. The space between the two side panes was filled with smoke swirling in the wind.

“Uh, Doctor? I found something…weird,” Yaz said into the radio, muscle memory by this point. She can’t imagine what it’ll be like when she goes _home_ home - back to Sheffield - and not have someone there constantly to listen to whatever she just thought of.

“Weird how?” As always, the response was almost immediate. It was pretty rare the Doctor took more than a minute to respond, and even rarer that she didn’t answer at all (Yaz wondered briefly if that was just for her or for everyone, and then pushed _that_ thought to the back of her mind).

“It kind of looks like a doorway…with smoke in the middle.” Yaz circled the structure, inspecting it closely. The back looked exactly like the front, and the smoke didn’t move from between the two side panes. It gave off a weird sort of shimmer the longer she looked at it.

“A doorway? That’s weird. Where are you?” There was the now familiar electronic ringing over the radio and Yaz didn’t even wonder what it was anymore. It happened so often she just assumed it was something wrong with the connection (probably).

“In a clearing near the lake, a few kilometers east, I believe.” Yaz pulled out the map from her back pocket (something else that was becoming muscle memory) and checked it against her compass. She was spot on. “Doctor, what is it?”

“I’m not sure, maybe some type of teleport or something. It’s either nothing too terrible, or very very bad news.”

“That’s comforting,” Yaz said. “How did it get here? Did the government make it or something?”

A metallic hiss sounded over the radio and the Doctor came back, slightly out of breath. “No, I don’t think it’s human. Doesn’t sound like it.”

Yaz studied the glowing engravings on either side pane of the doorway. “What, like alien?”

The Doctor paused. “Oh uh, yeah. Like alien, I suppose,” she finally said.

“On Earth, in Wyoming?”

“Seems so.”

Yaz bit the inside of her cheek, weighing her options. “Alright, I’m going through the teleport thing.”

“No, bad idea. I have no idea what’s on the other side of that thing. It could be the vacuum of space, or an alien army, or —“

“Oh, come on, Doctor. I’ll be right quick, promise.”

“I’m not condoning this, Yasmin Khan,” the Doctor scolded.

Yaz smiled, one foot already stepping through the portal. “I know.”

It wasn’t the vacuum of space or an alien army. Actually, it was just a small dark hallway. There was a loud machine hum coming all around her and she figured maybe a ship of some kind? She’s seen Star Wars, she knows what space ships look like.

She started down the hallway, keeping her tread light and looking into the doorways of the two rooms she passed. Both were empty and she continued on. Yaz heard the machine hum get louder with each step she took towards the third room. She peeked her head around the edge of the doorway and almost screamed (but she didn’t, and that’s a _win_ ).

Yaz entered the room and stuck her fingers to the neck of an unconscious man - there was a pulse, and it wasn’t weak so he wasn’t dead or hurt badly. She moved to the next bed and realized it was one of the missing teenage girls. She felt the girls neck and found the same normal pulse. She inspected the wires that ran from each persons head and followed them to where they connected directly into large black machine that Yaz couldn’t even begin to identify.

Loud boots thumped across the ground and Yaz bolted upright. Her heart raced as she frantically looked around for a place to hide and then realized her best chance would be getting to the teleport door. The thudding footsteps were getting closer and she ran for the door, bolting down the hallway. There were (what Yaz assumed) yells and the thudding boots started running after her. She ran for the doorway, jumping over the threshold and running into the thick trees, off the marked path.

( _She will go back for them. She will go back for them. She will go back for them. She will —_ )

She didn’t stop until she couldn’t feel her legs and didn’t hear chase. She slumped against a thick tree and sank down to the ground, pulling her radio out of her pack.

“Doctor,” she said, breathing hard. Her lungs burned and she closed her eyes, trying to slow her heart rate.

“Yaz? Yaz, what happened? Are you okay?” Yaz smiled despite her exhaustion. The Doctor was worried, that’s sweet.

“I’m fine. I found the missing girls, and I think the other ones too. They gave chase but I lost them. It looks like they were hooked up to something, with like wires connected to their heads.”

“We’re they alive still? Did you check?”

“Yeah, they each had a pulse and it wasn’t weak or fast. Whatever they’re doing to them, they’re not awake and they’re not dead.” Yaz rubbed a tired hand down her face. “What were they connected to?”

“Not sure, hopefully we will find out cause’ otherwise it’ll bother me forever.”

* * *

The Doctor wasn’t quiet when she walked out of the woods less than a minute later.

She also wasn’t at _all_ what Yaz expected.

Yaz stood up as the Doctor walked near. She stuck her hand out to Yaz and grinned. “Nice to finally meet you, Yasmin Khan. I’m the Doctor.”

She took her hand, smiling despite her best efforts. “Nice to meet you too, Doctor.”

A million thoughts ran through Yaz’s mind and the one that actually made its way to her mouth was, “so you really weren’t havin’ a laugh with the rainbow shirt and blue trousers.”

The Doctor looked down at her outfit then back at Yaz, a crease deepening between her brows as she frowned. “What? Practical. Won’t get eaten by a bear wearing bright colors, me. Now where is this mysterious door? I love a mysterious door.”

Yaz led her to the clearing where the doorway still stood, shimmering the longer they stared. The Doctor walked up and pulled out a metallic wand-like object. She pointed it at the doorway and Yaz’s ears perked up at the all too familiar electronic ringing.

“That’s what that sound is! I’ve been wondering about it for weeks.”

The Doctor turned and grinned. “Sonic screwdriver. Well, I say screwdriver but it’s a bit more multipurpose than that. Scanner, diagnostics — _tin opener!_ More like a…sonic swiss army knife, only without the knife.”

“So what did it say about the door?” Yaz asked. The Doctor used her sonic to scan again and looked at the side, reading something.

“Teleport, sort of. Doorway straight to their ship.” She turned to Yaz, an excitement in her eyes (that would soon become very familiar). “Ready to save some humans?” The Doctor held her hand out to Yaz.

Yaz took it, stepping through the portal after her.

* * *

When they entered the ship, the Doctor handed her a small black rectangle. “Almost forgot! Communication circuit. Sort of like a radio, but with less buttons.” She moved her hair from her neck to show an identail black rectangle stuck there.

Yaz stuck it to her neck but didn’t notice anything different about the sound of the Doctors voice (but also she couldn’t help but want to point out, their radios only had two buttons. That’s it).

They started down the hallway and Yaz led the Doctor to the room she had found the humans in. They were all still there and still alive (Yaz could’ve sobbed with relief, to be frank). The Doctor inspected their head wires with her sonic thing and then studied the black machine at the center of the room. Yaz poked her head out of the room every so often, waiting for the telltale sign that they’ve been caught on to and were going to be experimented on by these aliens or something.

“Yaz, I need you to go to my ship and get something for me. I have a plan, kind of.” The Doctor reached into her pants pockets and came out with a small silver key. She held Yaz’s hand and pressed it into her palm. “It’s right inside the door on a workbench, it’s green, easy to spot. Tell her I’ll be back soon and that you’re a friend.”

Yaz had a _lot_ of questions, and ones that she would’ve asked had the Doctor not basically pushed her towards the exit with a hissed ‘ _hurry’._

The first question Yaz got an answer to was ‘ _your ship?’_. Ship — apparently — was a very broad term, including blue police boxes sitting in the middle of the Wyoming forest. The second question she got an answer to was ‘ _what am I looking for on the workbench?’,_ but that one was easier since it was green, and boy was the Doctor not joking even in the slightest.

On the workbench inside the ship (which was _bigger on the inside_ ) was a microwave. A gaudy green microwave with the back panel missing and wires practically falling out. Workbench, green, the microwave had to be the thing the Doctor was talking about.

She never did get an answer to ‘ _tell who you’ll be back soon?’_ But halfway to the door she stopped and looked up, saying to no one in particular, “she said she’ll be back later and that I’m a friend.” (and oddly enough, she didn’t feel like a complete idiot who was talking to empty air).

The microwave isn’t heavy but she does work up a sweat on her trek back to the portal and into the room with the humans. The Doctor isn’t there when she enters. “Doctor?”

“Yaz! Are you back yet?” The Doctor is running, Yaz can hear it in her voice.

“Yeah, where’d you go?” she asked, putting the microwave on the table.

“Oh, yanno, had to go do stuff. Turns out they’re using the humans as a power source to fuel their ship.”

“So what do you want done with the microwave?”

The instructions were clear. They weren’t even really hard, per say. Yaz had the first humans wires off their head and connected to a slot in the back panel of the microwave soon enough, and was quickly working on the next human — the missing teenage girl. Four humans sat up in their cots, heads wire free, as Yaz worked on the last human.

The same thudding footsteps she’d heard earlier sounded down the hallway again - _shit._

She got his wires connected to the microwave (with minimal shaking hands) and dug into her pack, pulling out her compass. She shoved it into the first human’s hands. “Go down the hallway, out the door and east until you hit the clearing with the blue police box. _Now!_ ” She pushed him towards the door and the other humans followed suit, running down the hallway as quietly as they could. “Doctor, I need to set this thing. The max is 4 minutes.”

“On my way, Yaz. Theres —“ the Doctor’s comm cut out. Yaz turned the dial on the microwave as far as it went, flipped the switch and pressed start. The inside light lit up and the familiar hum of the microwave filled the small room. Yaz bolted from the room and over the threshold, into fresh Wyoming air. She ran for the trees, heading away from the setting sun (east, clearing, safety) but stopped at the tree line.

“Doctor, are you coming?” Yaz asked, watching the doorway anxiously. She bounced on the balls of her feet while she waited for an answer.

( _3:45, 3:44, 3:43_ )

“I found more humans.”

_Oh. Oh shit._

“I’m coming back in,” Yaz said, already stepping through the doorway. “Where are you?”

“Down the hallway, turn left then right. Get these humans —“ the Doctor’s voice changed from the crystal clear sound to more authentic face-to-face as Yaz entered the room seconds later. “out of here,” she said, disconnecting another human. Yaz helped with the last of them and started leading them out of the room and towards the exit. The thudding steps got ever closer and Yaz guessed they were almost to the exit door by now. It’d be a stretch but they might make it if they went now.

“Are you coming?” she asked the Doctor who was crouched down and reconnecting the wires to an open panel on the wall.

“Yeah, I’ll be right behind. The wires will short circuit the power if left untethered and the microwave won’t work,” she ripped off a piece of electrical tape and taped a wire to another. “Don’t worry, used to do this a lot. I know what I’m doing.” Sparks shot from the panel and the Doctor stepped back in shock. She looked at Yaz and shrugged. “Sort of. Now go, I’ll be right behind.”

Yaz took one last look at the Doctor - grey coat sleeves rolled up and hair messy - and led the group silently but quickly through the hallways of the ship and out the doorway. Mentally, she counted down the seconds on the microwave ( _2:38, 2:37, 2:36_ ) and begged every higher power there is that the Doctor hurried her _stupid ass_ out of the ship.

She showed the group the way to the clearing but waited anxiously at the doorway inside the ship for the Doctor. ( _1:02, 1:01, 1:00, 59, 58)_

“Doctor?”

“Yes, Yaz?” the Doctor responded, breathless.

“The timer is down double digits.”

“I’m aware, thanks.”

( _35, 34, 33_ )

Yaz clenched and unclenched her fists.

_Shit._

“Where are you?” she asked, and almost immediately the Doctor turned a corner into the same hallway, running at full speed towards Yaz.

“ _Go!”_ she yelled. The thudding of boots was overwhelming and Yaz finally saw who — or what, more like it — was making the noise.

( _22, 21, 20, 19)_

The creature was ugly (was she allowed to say that about aliens or is that technically xenophobic?) with all its limbs and more legs than particularly necessary, in Yaz’s opinion. It followed the Doctor at a moderate pace, each leg thudding on the ground as it ‘walked’.

The Doctor passed Yaz in a flash, grabbing her hand and pulling her along. She pulled Yaz through the doorway hard, and then Yaz felt the sinking feeling in her stomach as they both tumbled out the door. The Doctor rolled to one side and Yaz hit the ground hard behind her. The microwave timer went off inside the ship and then the teleport disappeared. Literally, just vanished. Yaz wasn’t impressed, what with everything else she’d seen today.

She sat up, brushed the dust off her pants and turned to the Doctor sitting up next to her. She was being kissed before she even registered that the Doctor had moved, and when her brain finally caught up to her body she kissed back, bringing a hand up to cup the Doctor’s cheek.

When they parted Yaz looked her up and down and said, “so you’re an alien, huh?” The Doctor laughed, loud and proper, and Yaz couldn’t do anything else but the same in response.

She didn’t go back to the job, citing unforeseen family emergency and leaving with the Doctor in the blue police box (“a tardis, Yaz. Call her her name, it’s polite.” “and what’s her name?” “sexy”).

All in all, she guessed the job could’ve been worse — like having to camp and watch for smoke for four months straight.


End file.
